Trent Miskin sent me this link to Funding Universe’s 7000 company histories.
While it doesn’t have everyone of interest (I couldn’t find Ebay, or Overstock), it did have PayPal and Amazon in the 7k.
Here’s a snippet from the PayPal history:
“In just eight months time, between January and August 2000, PayPal surged from 12,000 accounts to 2.7 million. The company’s transaction process helped tremendously to fuel the growth. Money could be transferred to anyone who had an email address, even those who did not have to have a PayPal account. However, recipients did have to open a PayPal account in order to claim their money. The system’s convenience and cost won over eBay shoppers. They no longer needed a credit card to buy online, and the service cost them nothing. It was cheaper even than a postal money order and stamp. Sellers were required to pay 1.9 percent of the sales price.”
While most of the companies in the database are not going to be relevant to you, it’s worth a bookmark or an occasional read – especially if you find your competitor.
How else would you find out that Jeff Bezos left his job as vice-president of the Wall Street firm D.E. Shaw where he was already on the fast track.
It looks like they’ve basically uploaded content from the International Directory of Company Histories. Since the majority of the companies in the list are extremely mature, it seems like this is more of an SEO technique than a resource for entrepreneurs. They may see a number of bloggers linking back to them for providing this resource. But, it will be interesting to see how much use it gets by the members on the site.